Since Saturday’s shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) and 19 other people, six of whom died—including a nine year old girl born on September 11, 2001—pundits, politicians, and citizens alike have been reflecting on what might have driven the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner. Much attention has been paid to the tenor of political discourse over the past few years, and many have attempted to lay the shooting’s blame at the foot of the Tea Party movement. Indeed, when Giffords’s father was asked if his daughter had any enemies, he replied yes, the “whole Tea Party.”

Only once in America’s history, in November 1978, was a U.S. Congressman assassinated in the course of official business. Then, Leo Ryan was visiting Jonestown, Guyana, and his murder came shortly before Jim Jones led his cult’s followers in a mass suicide. The case of Gabrielle Giffords, whose prognosis for some form of recovery has been deemed (amazingly) relatively positive, is thus quite unique.

Yet, some fear that the atmospherics in U.S. politics today—and in Arizona, in particular, where conflict has been simmering over illegal immigration for some time—are such that the magazine was loaded into the gun by politicians, pundits, bloggers, and activists alike. In this case, many are pointing to the cross-hairs put on a map by SarahPAC, Sarah Palin‘s political action committee, in which Giffords was “targeted” for defeat (there have been reports that the map has been taken down, but I found it here over the weekend and again today).

Beyond Palin, however, many harsh words have been uttered from our elected representatives in Washington, D.C.

“You lie!” yelled South Carolina Republican Representative Joe Wilson (now chair of a House Armed Services subcommittee) at Barack Obama, during his speech on health care in 2009.

“Taliban Dan,” was the name that now former Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson gave to his opponent (and now Congressman) Daniel Webster in a 2010 campaign advertisement in branding his challenger a religious fanatic.

“It is Republicans wrapping their arms around Republicans rather than doing the right thing on behalf of the heroes. It is a shame! A shame!” yelled Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner (who throws other bombs as well in Congress) at his Republican opponents during a debate over medical care for emergency responders of the September 11 attacks. Later in the speech he also shouted that the “gentleman will observe regular order and sit down!”

Barack Obama is “anti-American,” said Minnesota Republican Representative Michelle Bachmann during the 2008 campaign, going further in this Hardball interview with Chris Matthews and saying that “I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America or anti-America.”

Then Senate candidate and now Democratic Senator Joe Manchin took “Dead Aim” against the cap-and-trade bill, literally shooting the bill in a 2010 campaign ad.

I could go on and on and detail comment after comment on both sides of the political aisle in which our politicians not only disagree with their political opponents but cast personal and conspiratorial aspersions on their character and even about their patriotism. And, these are just comments that have been made by our elected representatives, lest we not forget either the birthers who question Barack Obama’s legitimacy to be president or Sharron Angle, who lost to Democratic senator and majority leader Harry Reid in Nevada, who said, “And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

But, of course, what I’ve just cited are only a few instances that point to incendiary political rhetoric; it omits the Rush Limbaughs on the right and the Ed Schultzes on the left who froth at the mouth in demonizing their political opponents or the thousands and thousands of political bloggers on both sides who hurl epithets in a race to political Armageddon.

The reality is that our politicians set the tone that politics is a winner-take-all battle royal and that all’s fair in politics, even if you have to lie about your opponent, question his or her motives, and destroy them personally (as well as politically). That’s not to say that Sarah Palin or anyone else is responsible for the assassination attempt of Representative Giffords. The shooter is responsible for himself and his own actions, but it’s high time that our elected representatives set a better example for us that politics is a battle over ideas but one that can be waged with comity, in the belief that even if you disagree with someone your opponents motives are as pure as yours are.

One of President Obama’s favorite phrases implores politicians, citizens, and pundits alike that we should “maintain the kind of tone that says we can disagree without being disagreeable.” If only.